|
Developers interested in the future of a 3,000-acre site southeast of Los Angeles are considering the design proposals of Washington University architecture students in the company's efforts to create a viable urban community there.
The overall challenge is to reclaim a former military site in Orange County and bring it alive through a variety of mixed uses. The graduate-level studio -- taught by Tim Franke and Eric Mumford, Ph.D., assistant professors of architecture -- involved analysis of issues from the microscopic to the telescopic.
"The level of sophistication of the students' designs is very impressive," noted studio design critic Keenan Smith, an architect and urban design consultant to the Irvine Co., which is seeking to promote redevelopment of the site. "The students' work demonstrates a good grasp of the challenges involved. It offers us some fresh perspectives and strategies that will be important to the site's future development."
In addition to its massive scale, the site raises a number of development concerns ranging from transforming a military runway to addressing environmental issues to improving transportation access. Additionally, Native American archeological remains preclude any development of the northeast portion of the site, which has been set aside as a nature preserve. A flood plain and sensitive plant populations require protecting other areas.
Franke and Mumford were eager to have their studio tackle the military base site because it typifies some major urban development issues nationally.
The architecture students first created master plans for the new urban community and then offered specific program elements ranging from a new university campus to a multi-modal transit center with adjacent shopping and business opportunities to a landscape interpretive center.
A trip to California provided the students with a better understanding of the site's specific conditions, as well as the rapidly growing urban community emerging in the surrounding region.
"The site visit, including extensive tours of design work already under way in the region, was unquestionably one of the most valuable experiences that the students could have gained," Franke said. "While Southern California faces many of the same urban design challenges as much of the rest of the nation, phenomenal development pressures in Orange County intensify these issues. The region offers a quintessential teaching environment where extreme failures and successes are both abundant and clear."
Graduate student Luis Sison tackled some of the difficult design issues by incorporating the military runway into the road system and using a series of parks to connect different segments of the new community. "It was a very holistic approach as we considered how people live and move about the community, as well as how best to integrate residential, commercial, and research and development areas with parks, a university campus and a multi-modal transit center," he said.
Franke and Mumford hope to continue such studio investigations, as the School of Architecture expands its emphasis on issues of urban design, landscape architecture and physical community planning.
"The studio project was ideal, since architects need to be able to synthesize a lot of information of the kind presented in Orange County, and then be prepared to propose realistic design strategies to create successful metropolitan environments in the future," Mumford said.
